Am I the only one too dense to understand why this inquiry is posted on a thread entitled "Words from medicine"?

I was going to appeal to surrealism - what's in a title, sort of thing, but then decided not to.

My suspicion (more seriously now) is that newcomers do not always find it easy to interpret the structure of AWADtalk (some, of course, taking to it like fish to bicycles), and may post their queries on whatever forum 'comes to hand'. If they stay, with time, their posts become more accurately targetted. But this is not a theory I would fall on my sword for. (Or go to the mattresses for?)

This is probably going to sound stupid, but I never did understand how someone can write words that sound pretty just based on rhyme and rhythm. The only stabs I have ever made at poetry were completely devoid of rhyme and had no meter (am I remembering the poetry words correctly?) at all.

When I read something that just sings, regardless of the meanings of the words, it amazes me. I read a Lewis Carroll poem the other day that just sang straight to my heart. I had to read it a couple of times before I could understand the words because the sound of them was so beautiful that the meaning didn't even matter.

I can recognize beauty and understand that it is great, but I couldn't even begin to put together a little stanza that rhymed and sounded rhythmic, as Jackie and the good Father have done.

i wonder if this is at all related to the fact that I can look at a well dressed person or a well decorated room and appreciate it, but I couldn't begin to put together a fashionable wardrobe or living room without advice.

One also wonders why I am up at nearly 2am and have absoloutely no desire to go to bed, so I keep thinking of things to post. Sigh.

For Jackie, Father Steve and others here, My ego isn't such a fragile thing:A robust apostate I am, my dear, Not failing under every rowdy slingOr arrow flung by one-track-minded folk Who, though they have invoked almighty God,Most surely I suspect intend a joke; For crossing threads is rife in our AWAD.And who should claim this method plays us false? It has stood us in good stead in the pastFrom Shona with velocipedal waltz To anarchy in threads that diverge fast. We come here stout of heart and good of will Of language, not of rage, to have our fill.

xara, I believe you can't develop poems or fashion because that's just the way your mind works. Last year I attended a training session on the seven learning styles. If you get the opportunity, I suggest you do the same--it was fascinating. We took a test, then divided into groups with people who had answered the same way. My group kept going,"Yes! That's exactly the way I do things--why can't other people understand that?" I almost didn't go into that group--I had FOUR categories score in the top three points,but only one with full points (reading), so I went with that one. You might be a kinesthetic learner--I believe that's the rarest.

shanks--what can I say, but that you're wonderful and I love you?Oh--who's Dollabella?

Seven learning styles. Bother - and I had been told there were four. Ah well - depends upon the management consultant in charge, I suppose. But yes - I agree that people have different learning styles and xara may well find one that works for her. After all (apart from the masterpieces Steve and you produced) we aren't claiming to write poetry here - just jingly-jangly verse.

And I love you too - just don't tell your husband.

xara - rhyme and rhythm, particularly when regulated in acknowledged verse forms - sonnets (my poor example above), limericks, terza rima, villanelles and the like - are very difficult to handle 'poetically'. Only the very best poets these days can do it. For most of us, doggerel is the best we can do. I suspect that this is the reason why so much poetry these days is written in 'free verse'.

It might be worth remembering that poets like Keats, Shelley and Byron (to take Romantic poets who also seem romantic to us) were actually punctilious craftsmen. They had been brought up on great poetry, had practised rhyming, alliterative verse, metrical experiments and the like in their youth, so that by the time they were in their late teens and had something special to say, poetry was natural for them. Even so they made innumerable drafts of their poems - and what sounds so spontaneous to us today was not just "profuse strains of unpremeditated art", but amazing craftsmanship as well.

If you want to achieve that craftsmanship, unfortunately, practice is the only way. It doesn't matter what you wish to write about - practice rhyme and rhythm. Restrict yourself to the tough forms - the villanelles, the ottavia rima and so on - and keep the words coming. Try it with diffcult rhymes. Try to use long words and still keep your rhythm. Then, some day, when you find yourself overflowing with emotion, and want to let it out somehow, see if formal verse will do.

Remember that almost any great artist was first a great craftsman.

cheer

the sunshine warrior

ps. for Jackie: Dollabella was the principal female character in Wintersol. (How's that for an uninformative answer?)

>rhyme and rhythm, particularly when regulated in acknowledged verse forms - sonnets (my poor example above), limericks, terza rima, villanelles and the like - are very difficult to handle 'poetically'...I suspect that this is the reason why so much poetry these days is written in 'free verse'

Ah ha. That explains that. [rant] soooo sorry if I insult anybody here but I really hate poetry that isn't. If you look in upscale magazines, like the New Yorker, those inane ramblings are being passed off as poetry. Most times, they don't even make sense, for heaven's sake. Maybe I'm just dense and the deep inner meaning of the words are over my head, but, dag nabbit, it seems like a bunch of drivel to me.[end rant]

And I hasten to add I found it today in a Web search just for the purpose - I'd never been to Delilah's site before. Honest! This site was just more succinct on the subject than the straight-laced medical ones with similar information.

Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" first popularised 'free verse' in the 19th century. While I don't like his poem much (I have animadverted about it on a different thread somewhere - oh yes - the book lists one), I have to admit that parts of it are quite rhythmically splendid. He deliberately avoids conventional metrical styles to achieve a spontaneity of effect.

Coming along with Eliot's subtle innovations in the early 20th century, it spelled the virtual death of verse in poetry. Few less gifted poets appreciated the genius of the rhyme and rhythm in Eliot, and saw it instead as a carte blanche for them to produce mystical musings with no structure at all. As you can see, the result (apart from Marty's mighty effort above) is often drivel. The problem, of course, is that any poet who writes in verse is likely to be dismissed these days as a mere versifier.

Even the more highly regarded ones (the late Ted Hughes in the UK, for instance) often need to establish their reputations before they can get away with good verse (sonnets in Hughes' case).

But there is no need to despair - I have read (or merely perused?) many books of contemporary verse that show there is, perhaps, a resurgence in the appreciation of the traditional values. See if you can track down the "Poems on the Underground" anthologies, or the (admittedly rather British) "The Nations Favourite Poems". Ted Hughes, before he died, also edited a delightful anthology called "By Heart", in which he makes the case for 'knowing' the poems by heart without trying to learn them by rote. One hundred gems - many old and well known, many startligly good new/fresh stuff.

Ah enough with the poetry, how about some medical words? Can anyone explain to me what dolichocephalic is supposed to mean?

cheer

the sunshine warrior

ps. Bel - some free verse is very, very good - and not all poetry should be rejected on the grounds that it doesn't follow the traditional structures...

I'm not a medical expert (and I detest medical jargon), but dolicho- as a suffix means long and narrow -- don't know the signficance of having a long and narrow head unless it is related to being horse-faced.

I tracked down the roots too - but they made no sense until you suggested 'horse-faced'. Only ever came across the word in Tom Sharpe's Wilt - I think with reference to the psychiatrist who is asked to assess the eponymous protagonist.

I think that the word "dolicocefalo" (and also some similar words ) are related to Cesare Lombroso (about 1880?), who was thinking that it is possible to predict the behaviour (criminal or not) of someone from the shape of his skull ( and - I imagine- from the size of its brain). So he was classifying people in several classes, according to the kind of shape...Do you remember "Frankenstein junior", when there is a collection of brains... and Marty Feldman takes the one with the label "ab normal"?CiaoEmanuela

>Bel - some free verse is very, very good - and not all poetry should be rejected on the grounds that it doesn't follow the traditional structures...

Shanks dear, if you have any suggestions to make as to good free verse, I'd like to hear them. I promise I will look into it. As it stands, in the 'poems' I have seen, you can remove the returns and put them in paragraph form and it will sound exactly the same.

What I admire about poems is their rhythmic quality. Haiku's do not rhyme but they do have rhythm. What burns my butt is that, like you say, poets that use rhyme and rhythm are considered second-class  but it's hard work. I know I can't do it.

When I read something like:

I went to the grocery ..store, and when

I was in the produce section I sawthat no more melons .were in the bin. And my dog was waiting in the car

I want to pull out my hair at the thought that someone was PAID for this.

(Oy, two grumpy posts in a row. My jubilant reputation is going to take a beating. You can now call me Grumpy Gus )

Though I can't claim to be an expert on poetry, I am currently in a class based around it, and I think the main purpose of peotry is to convey an image, however twisted or droll that image may be. Poetry is a means of expressing one's artistic thoughts. In certain types of free verse, a poet can use a word here, a large space, a couple words here, another in all capitals here and make some sort of idea pop into the readers head. Spacing and using all lower case can be effective in certain ways. It may not be nicely organized and traditional, but it can get it's point across.

It took me a moment before I figured out that emanuela was referring to the 1974 American film "Young Frankenstein" when she mentioned a scene from "Frankenstein Junior." This, according to the Italian-language site of the IMDB, is because this film was released in Italy in 1975 under the name "Frankenstein Junior." Go figure.

And you're right, cara mia, it is a very funny scene where Feldman gets the brains mixed up.

Just spotted this thread. I had no idea of the things that go on here. I just tried to answer a simple question then I hit "show all" and found a cacophony of contributions. Amazing how y'all get around this board!

I believe the form of poetry you are describing is not free verse, but prose verse (yeah, a contradiction in terms I know). And if you take out all the line breaks they can make rather good paragraphs, but not all paragraphs can be turned into prose verse.

Listen, wwh, you guys started this thread months ago, and it never was about medicine that I could see in a brief perusal. It has permutated from ballroom balls to a discussion of free verse, so I figured, what the heck, I'll give it a whack with my observation that Faulkner is often poetic in his prose. Now I don't know whether the old Southern bourbon tippler wrote about ballroom balls... If there were a story worth telling about one with ramifications about family secrets, I sure he would have worked it into his convoluted tales.

And anyway: there's the dreaded sports word on the German forum, so there are deep hidden secrets even on this word board. Makes me think of the Hardy boys... And we certainly are a hardy bunch of word hounds, if sometimes illogic (not illogical here in deference to previous posts about Dr. Spock on some other thread in the word lagoon).

Dear WW: I have been subject to menacing minatory missives about posting in what the deponent declared dubious districts. I was mildly amused that the original gaffer had not been gutted. Anyway, a thing about words from medicine was uninspired, there are so censored deleted expurgated unmentioned unprinted many of them that no board member would ever want to know.Maybe lorenzo was dei Medici, and that explained his choice of place to post. His next question probably would have been what is the name of the ventilation opening in the ceiling above the ballroom, that was central to the stern inquiry:"Where were you when the skat hit the fan?"

In reading this thread again, I cast my vote for star ball...those glittering reflections of the ballroom walls, windows, mirrors, and tapestries take me right back to Disco Castle, where it was dreadfully difficult for the knights to boogaloo in that clanging armour.

Hi. My name is Connie and I'm an addict. I am addicted, as are many of you in this ballroom, to AWADtalk. I have to have it every day. I have logged on to other peoples' computers to check the board. I can no longer lurk, but have to post. Sometimes I click to reply and catch myself and force myself to cancel the reply. I am guilty of dittography. I often wear my cloak of invisibility while checking the board. I have met other addictsyou know who you are and we have talked about our posts to the board. I sometimes talk about the board to people that have never been here and say things like "I'll have to post that, that is hilarious." They look at me funny and move slowly backwards. But I know that you here in this ballroom are all saying "Amen, sister." I feel your love.ROTFLMFAO

Having recently abandoned "addict' for "old" (I'll take the latter, I guess), I hereby pass the Addict Torch to you, consuelo...at least you still have a fighting chance! I'm afraid I'm already beyond AWAD Recovery! And, thanks alot, Connie, just what I needed...another Main Thread to follow! [screaming-at-the-slower-than-molasses-loading-to-let-me-in-e!]

It is so good to see this strange thread up and running again. This is the "Anything Goes" thread. This is the thread that'll make you dizzy reading it, just like that spinning ball in the ballroom. And it's the thread that, unless you read the whole thing, you won't have any idea at all why it appears on the Medical Terms forum.

Thank you, jmh, for bringing this one back. Who knows what kind of nonsense might appear here in the next few days?

In case the Asp looks in, I want her to be very proud of me for referring to "Anything Goes" above and thinking inside my head, "Cole Porter, Cole Porter"!

I was knocked off my feet, when just a lad, by a medicine ball thrown at my stomach during gym...I still remember the way it felt for three days after. Why are (or is it were; have I outlived them and thus avenged myself on the instrument if not the perpetrator) they called medicine balls?

The ceiling-hanging, spot-dancing balls were called glitterballs at the palais. But not named after Gary Jesuit Glitter.

WHERE DOES THE TERM "MEDICINE BALL" COME FROM? It is rumoured that Hippocrates, the father of medicine used a large heavy padded ball to sweat fever from his patients. The earliest descriptions of what is now called a medicine ball can be found in ancient Greek and Egyptian writings.

Ironic, isn't it, that the most-read thread on the medicine forum has little much to do with medicine?

Ironic, but perhaps not that surprising. A medicine thread will probably be of only superficial interest to other-than-physicians or paramedical or complementary personnel, presumably hoping [altruistically, of course] to share their knowledge. Things may be worth a quick read but not yield more that a superficial discussion. The topics of keenest interest will be too personal to generate a broad base of (public) responses...

EDIT: And it's probably not too hard to figure out what you were thinking, either -- whether to say "has little to do with..." or "has not much to do with..." and winding up saying both at the same time. (I'm sure there's a word for that!)

Or maybe just writing one and then re-writing the other, with incomplete editing

This ungoverned thread has little to do with medicine, but it reminds me of one of my favorite medical words, gubernaculum, which is derived etymologically from little governor; from gubernare = to control, and the diminutive suffix -culum.

An interesting "ball" in medicine is the "fungus ball" that can grow in the lungs of patients infected with aspergillis. I've always thought it would be hilarious if a microbiology association had a yearly gala called "The Fungus Ball." But enough silliness. It is now nearly 6:00 PM on Friday, and time to leave work and go to our clinic's annual Christmas party.

For the many of board members who never had to struggle with embryology, the testesare originally close to the kidneys. I cannot grasp how the Lord brought it about that thetestes should keep moving toward the pelvis, passing between the layers of the abdominalmuscles and into the scrotum. I'm not religious, but I can understand the temptation tobelieve in "intelligent design". I don't see any way just evolution could have done it. Teleologically, the development of the sperm is favored by the somewhat lower tempreaturein the scrotum. Though it puts the testes at risk of external violence. (Cringe, cringe)

Some good times I remember - my birthday that September,we lay down on the lawn,and counted until dawn,the stars that we lay under.And is he still, I wonder, the fairest of them all, mirror, mirrorball.

I swore I wouldn't AWAD after work today I have too many errands to run on the way home. Well I hope the store is open late cos' here I am 45 minutes later reeling out the door and giggling to myself. Not only am I late but they'll think I have a bottle hidden in my desk.

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